History of AR

In the year 1901, L. Frank Baum, an author, first mentions the idea of an electronic display/spectacles that overlays data onto real life, it is named a ‘character marker’. Between 1957 to 1962, Morton Heilig, a cinematographer, invents and patents a simulator called Sensorama that came with visuals, sound, vibration, and smell.

In 1968, Ivan Sutherland creates the head-mounted display and positions it as a window into a virtual world.

In 1980, Steve Mann invents the first ever wearable computer, a computer vision system that had text and graphical overlays on a photographically mediated reality or better known as Augmediated Reality.

In 2013, Google announces an open beta test of the company’s first augmented reality glasses called Google Glass. These pair of glasses were made to be able to connect the Internet through Bluetooth, which has to be connected to the wireless service on a user’s mobile phone first. After that, the glasses will then respond when a user speaks, touches the frame or moves the head. Revolutionary.

2 years later, Microsoft enters the foray of AR with a new concept codenamed HoloLens. HoloLens is an AR headset that utilises various sensors and a processing unit to combine high definition “holograms” with the real world.